Peregrine
I haven’t taken any bird photos for a while… but today was Paul’s birthday trip, which was a visit to Feathers and Fur, a local falconry centre. It’s a tiny place, inside a garden centre, and a friend had told us about a Groupon offer on their Hands On falconry sessions.
Willow, barn owl
We were incredibly lucky to have the entire two hour session to ourselves, and even though it’s apparently not the right time of year for falconry (the birds should be out hunting and getting fat), everyone behaved beautifully.
Sadie was really friendly and taught us lots of things about the birds, their environment, and how she raises and looks after them. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and we laughed for most of the session. It turns out that watching a barn own swallow his lunch whole is somewhat inelegant, but absolutely hilarious!
Kestrel
I used the 70mm macro lens this time, and I’m really pleased with the photos I managed to take. I went for portraits rather than action pictures (Paul has some gorgeous ones of the owls in flight), and am thrilled with the detail on the image below. The snow made the light a bit weird and I was worried about the photos being over-exposed, so I dropped the ISO down to 400. I think that was a mistake, as some of the images are darker than I’d like, but I definitely had a higher success rate than I have in the past!
Billie Jean, eagle owl
You can see the rest of my photos over on Flickr. If you’re feeling sensitive, one of them’s a bit gruesome (the aforementioned barn owl lunch), but hey, everybody needs to eat.
We’ll definitely be going back and booking another session – probably a dedicated photography one next time. Sadie took some great shots with Paul’s camera, and understands how to position you to get the pictures you want. Although it’s always nice to have the opportunity to have the birds fly to you, so another session like the one we had today would be great.
(Note to self: No, you can’t have a barn owl. Really.)